Pentecost had to have been a truly psychedelic experience. One moment you are scared for your life, hiding out from the authorities, and then there you are with stuff like "tongues of fire" (trails?) shooting out of your head, hitting the streets and everything you say is perfectly understandable to everybody around you - even those who do not speak your language! What a sense of empowerment, interpersonal connectedness and unity that must have been.
wouldn't that be kind of a waste if only one human ever got to experience it? when i was eleven years old, out of curiosity, i went for about a year to a church that called itself that. never could make any sense out of that either. i believe there are plenty of things we don't know anything about, but they don't own anything to what people tell each other. maybe every thousand years, give or take a few hundred, something like a god, picks some unfortunate human to be channelled by. maybe. infinity minus one other possibilities exist and are as likely. believe what you wish, because the unknown being unknown does not prevent the existence of anything. the god or gods i believe in, owe nothing to what i, or anyone else, thinks they know about it. people acted all crazy in that church, "when the spirit came over them" but none of them ever had the slightest idea what each other were babbling about.
sad but true people invent religions, for people reasons gods invent themselves, for their own reasons, if the should choose to, which is highly unlikely any of us will ever know.
Actually, if we don't take it too literally, it seems likely that something like Pentecost may have occurred--possibly not at a single gathering. During His lifetime, Jesus' followers thought of Him as the Messiah, and expected the imminent advent of the Kingdom of God on earth. The twelve were even each supposed to be rulers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel under the new order. Possibly, some expected this to be about to be ushered in when Jesus made his grand entry into Jerusalem. Then, to have him snatched away and crucified like a common criminal must have left them badly demoralized and depressed. Somehow they rallied and resolved to continue their mission in the absence of their Founder. That was quite a remarkable development--possibly no dove and literal tongues of fire, but the metaphorical equivalent! My guess is that rumors or reports of Jesus sitings and appearances had something to do with it, as well as scriptural interpretation making the linkage between the Messiah and the "Suffering Servant" of Isaiah 53. As for the speaking in tongues, we know from present charismatic practice and Paul's letters that glossolalia is a genuine phenomenon. Luke may have been exaggerating a bit when he said the sounds were intelligible to others.
